


i was just coasting till we met

by sevensevan



Series: pride month 2018 [27]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, First Meetings, M/M, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-27
Updated: 2018-06-27
Packaged: 2019-05-29 15:47:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 789
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15076448
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sevensevan/pseuds/sevensevan
Summary: Steve meets his soulmate at twenty-one, when he pours hot coffee all over him.





	i was just coasting till we met

Steve pours coffee all over his soulmate the first time he meets him, which is both horrifically mortifying and completely, totally unsurprising. See, Steve finally hit the growth spurt everyone has been promising him since tenth grade his sophomore year of college, and now, at twenty-one, he’s six feet tall, athsma-free, a hundred pounds heavier, and has had to replace his _entire_ wardrobe to avoid all of his t-shirts becoming crop tops.

Not that Steve has a problem wearing crop tops. He has nice abs and is perfectly happy for the world to see them. He’d just like to own other things, too.

Anyway, Steve has only been this tall for eight months or so, and his brain hasn’t really caught on yet. Mentally, he’s still ninety pounds soaking wet, spindly, wheezing, and eternally sick. Physically, he’s…well, _not_.

It doesn’t usually cause that many problems; a little clumsiness here and there that’s fading quickly. However, Steve has been a barista since freshman year, and he’s developed an excellent system of sliding drinks across the counter and into the customer’s waiting hands. It’s efficient, it prevents the awkwardness of brushing hands with a complete stranger, and Natasha had once told him it was _snazzy_. Steve is pretty sure she was making fun of him, but it’s really impossible to tell with Natasha. She has a total of three facial expressions according to Clint, and Steve has only ever seen the one.

The problem with Steve’s sliding system, though, is the fact that he’s not used to doing it with biceps larger than some people’s legs.

“Bucky!” he shouts into the bustle of the coffee shop, reading the name off the side of the drink. Natasha had taken the guy’s order. Steve looks up across the counter, going to slide the drink across, and _oh my fucking God he’s beautiful_.

_Bucky_ , as it turns out, is kind of gorgeous. The whole liking guys thing isn’t _new_ to Steve, really, and neither is the absolute wealth of wonderfully attractive and sexually ambiguous men at college, but _this_ guy. Wow.

Steve’s fingers slip on the coffee cup, and it falls over halfway across the counter, spilling hot coffee all over the countertop, the floor, and Bucky.

“Oh _fuck_ ,” is the first thing to leave Steve’s mouth. “Fuck. Oh God.” To his credit, he’s not rendered completely useless by the presence of a beautiful man. He manages to grab some napkins from behind the counter, stepping around it to uselessly pat at Bucky’s peacoat, which looks _very_ expensive now that he’s getting a closer look at it and _oh shit_ , is he going to get sued?

That thought leaves Steve’s mind the instant Bucky takes the napkins from him and their fingertips brush together. He inhales sharply, his head suddenly swimming. Everything clicks into higher definition: suddenly the colors are brighter, the sounds clearer, the smell of coffee sharper, pleasant. Bucky, staring back at him with a stricken expression Steve is sure is mirrored on his own face, seems to be experiencing the same thing.

Hesitantly, irrationally nervous, Steve looks down at his right forearm, where the white star he had been born with, smack-dab in the middle of his arm, equidistant from his wrist and elbow, is glowing brightly, shining out from the tattoos that surround it. He looks back up at Bucky, hopeful.

Bucky is holding out his own right arm, his sleeve pushed up, and, in the exact same spot as Steve’s, a small red star is glowing.

“It’s a different color,” Steve says softly, staring at it, entranced. “I’ve never seen that before.”

“Me, neither,” Bucky says, just as quietly. Suddenly he looks up, his frantic gaze meeting Steve’s. “But you felt that, right? You felt it.” Steve smiles, looking back down at their matching marks, the glow beginning to fade from them both.

“Yeah,” he says, awed. “Yeah, I felt it.”

“Good,” Bucky says, relaxing a bit and smiling back. Steve is struck once more by how _pretty_ he is. He has a feeling he’s going to keep feeling struck by it, for the rest of their lives. “That’s good.” Steve nods.

“Sorry about your coat,” he says suddenly, remembering the coffee.

“What?” Bucky looks down at himself. Then he laughs, and _God_ , Steve has always been a bit of a romantic when it comes to the whole soulmate thing, but this is so much more than anything he had imagined. He wants to be the reason Bucky makes that sound forever. “I don’t care about the coat,” Bucky says dismissively. “You’re my _soulmate_.” Steve grins shyly, rubbing at the back of his neck and looking down.

“Yeah,” he says. “Guess I am, huh?”

_I guess I am._

**Author's Note:**

> i'm no longer taking prompts for pride month; if you sent me one i promise i'm working on filling it. find me on tumblr @daisys-quake. thanks for reading; leave a comment and kudos if you enjoyed.


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